Primate (2025)

 Primate has a very simple premise. A bunch of young annoying people go back to Lucy’s home where they have a chimp that’s called Ben and gets Rabies and then goes apesh*t and tries to kill everyone. Sometimes films work best when they are stripped back to just being your typical b-movie schlock. This is directed by Johannes Roberts who previously did the most recent Resident evil film which I quite enjoyed. 

The film is rated an 18 which is quite a difficult thing to achieve but it definitely deserved it. On one occasion Ben rips a guy's jaw off and on another occasion rips a bit of someone’s scalp off. The girls ring some guys they meet on the plane and they are literally just in the movie so that Ben can kill them. Ok they were rather annoying but when they appeared I knew that they weren’t going to feature in the final act of the movie. 

If I had an issue with the film it's that the film is in constant darkness. I know that it's in the middle of the night but they could have jus stuck a couple of more lights on. As a result because all the girls kind of looked the same I could tell who was the main girl and her sister. The film only had one person that I recognised and it was the guy from CODA Troy Kotsur. He is in it briefly but he is rather good and it's quite nice and refreshing to have a deaf character in one of the central roles and others knowing sign language.

I like the fact that Ben was played by an actual person. It was obvious that they weren’t going to get a real chimp so as I was watching it I wondered if they were going to do a mixture of actor and CGI/AI. Thankfully they seem to have gone for the former and Miguel Hernando Torres Umba plays the role brilliantly and comes across as one of the scariest monsters that I have seen in a horror film for quite sometime.

Overall I enjoyed this film a lot more than I was expecting. There are some pacing issues especially when we have to spend a long time with the girls before Ben goes bad and when they move into the pool after the rampage starts there are moments where it feels like the pace is stuttering a bit. However the film is 89 minutes long and it doesn't outstay its welcome. The plot is simple and doesn't complicate itself although the dad disappearing just so he could come back and save the day did feel a little cliched. However despite these minor issues it is a film that I recommend but be mindful if you dont like gore then this might not be the film for you.

R.I.P Ben